I don't understand why you should say 'man geht ins Kino' instead of 'man geht in dem Kino'.

When using articles in German one has to think about whether the sentence needs to be accusative or dative. In the example above the first version is in the accusative and the second is in the dative. It is important to understand that the sentence is to do with movement so therefore the accusative should be used rather than the dative which is used when one is stationary. Another important thing to note is that 'ins' is short for 'in das' but when these two words are next to each other they are compressed together to make 'ins'.Had the sentence been 'man ist I'm Kino' then im is correct because the person is stationary and so the dative is used. Again, 'Im' is the condensed version of 'in dem'.

SD
Answered by Sophie D. German tutor

2097 Views

See similar German GCSE tutors

Related German GCSE answers

All answers ▸

What are the differences between the various 'you' forms in German?


When can we use demonstrative pronouns?


Translate into German: My friends and I like to help old people. We have no time now because we get a lot of homework. Last week I went shopping for my grandmother when she was ill and she gave me some money. I will use it for my holiday


Beschreiben Sie ihre Schule


We're here to help

contact us iconContact ustelephone icon+44 (0) 203 773 6020
Facebook logoInstagram logoLinkedIn logo

MyTutor is part of the IXL family of brands:

© 2025 by IXL Learning